1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to music renderers. More particularly, the field of the invention relates to providing music items to music renderers.
2. Description of the Related Technology
With the advent of new music storage formats, such as MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3), the music industry has seen a remarked increase with respect to individuals using their home computer for playing music and individuals purchasing new types of music renderers, such as portable music devices, for playing music.
Using these new music storage formats, it is possible to shrink the sound data from sources such as a compact diskette (CD) without sacrificing sound quality. CDs typically render music at about 1400 kilobits per one second of stereo music. However, by converting data from a CD to another data format, such as MP3, the size of the data can be shrunk by a factor of about 12 without significantly sacrificing the quality of the music.
Many individuals use the Internet to find and download music in these new formats to their personal computer. At the personal computer, the user can, via a playback device program, play, edit, or copy the downloaded music. Furthermore, from the personal computer, the user can download the music to a portable music player so that the downloaded music can be played wherever the user travels. Portable music players, such as the Diamond Rio 500, allow individuals store up to two hours of digital-quality music and up to 32 hours of spoken audio programs. The Diamond Rio includes 64 MB onboard memory, expandable to 96 MB with removable flash cards.
Most music players provide a certain core group of features, such as playing and recording music. However, other than the core group, it is difficult to predict all of the features that will be supported by the music players. As hypothetical examples, optional features can include: providing compact diskette “burning”, providing storage library hierarchies for music items, associating notes with music items, etc. Thus, since these features are not anticipated, the features are not supported by many legacy playback device programs.
To overcome this problem, as new features are introduced, the playback device programs are redesigned by the provider of the playback device program to provide support for the new features. Disadvantageously, the redesign takes time. Furthermore, the new version of the music player must be transmitted to the user. Both of these events are an inconvenience for the user.
Thus, there is a need for a music player that can take advantage of newly developed features of music renderers. Furthermore, the music player should not have to be redesigned to support the new features.